News

Hurricane Season is Here

Posted On: June 7, 2019

The month of June brings some "not so good news" to the state of Florida. June 1st marks the beginning of the 2019 hurricane season. Over the last few years, we've seen devastation from Hurricanes Irma and Micheal. With Micheal hitting in October of 2018 and Irma during the month of September in 2017. The good news is that this hurricane season is predicted to be less severe than average. Colorado State University (CSU), the pioneer of hurricane season predictions, is predicting 13 named storms, five to become hurricanes, and two to hit major status (111 mph winds or higher).…

No More AOB Abuse

Posted On: May 31, 2019

A much-needed reform to Florida's Assignment of Benefits will be taking place on July 1st. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 7065, which marked the end to a seven-year war by the industry and reform advocates, who were looking for a solution to the escalating abuse of the policyholder benefit. For those who need the refresher; an Assignment of Benefits, or an AOB, is a document signed by a policyholder that allows a third party, such as a water extraction company, a roofer, or a plumber, to "stand in the shoes" of the insured and seek direct payment from…

Make Real Estate Great Again

Posted On: May 24, 2019

President Trump spoke of his plans that could affect the real estate industry in front of nearly 2,000 agents at the National Association of Realtors midyear meeting held in Washington, DC. "President Donald Trump wants to make real estate great again." During the hour long address, our president put the environmental and other government regulations that impede building on blast. He also spoke highly of his administration's opportunity zones (which encourages investment in struggling communities, and he preached his plans to repair the nation's housing finance system. If Trump can make this happen, that will mean more homes, better prices,…

Scams Still On The Rise

Posted On: May 17, 2019

Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual report on internet crime. In 2018 alone, a total of 351,936 complaints of internet crime were submitted. The claims stockpiled losses exceeding $2.7 billion. Of those crimes committed, 11,300 victims were from real estate scams. This caused $150 million in losses (Inman News). From year to year, the number of victims has increased by 17 percent. There were 9,645 real estate fraud victims in 2017. Now the biggest scare of all this is the money lost. The lost of dollars increased by 168 percent from 2017,…

Millennials are Rising Prices

Posted On: May 10, 2019

Over the next ten years buying a home will become more competitive and costly as millions of Americans enter the age range where people usually buy their first home. Skylar Olsen, who is the director of economic research at Zillow, had this to say about the matter; "If this coming wave of buyers have to compete fiercely for homes to purchase, that could drive up rent prices as well as home values." Almost 45 million Americans will be entering their mid-30s within the next ten years. That could possibly raise the demand for homes, which could raise prices, even in…

Tips for Buyers & Sellers

Posted On: May 3, 2019

In case you didn’t know, SETCO is here for sellers and buyers alike. Together, with Qualia, we offer the safest, most advanced closing process available. For this article, we want to give some advice to both buyers and sellers to improve your real estate experience. Let’s start with sellers. Selling a house can be a massive project with many stresses. You will need to worry about repairs, the market, staging your home, and so much more. To start this tip list, we suggest you start with the repairs of the house first or whatever updates you wish to make. Repairs…

Renting Going Down

Posted On: April 26, 2019

As rent prices are going up; the principal-and-interest mortgage payments are going down. CoreLogic's national rent skyrocketed 36 percent from December 2005 to December of 2018. Whereas, typical mortgage payment fell 4 percent over the same time frame. Researchers believe mortgage rates made the most significant difference in the change. In December 2005, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.3 percent. While in 2018, the 30-year fixed-rates were at 4.6 percent. This also happened with the home prices being incredibly different. In 2005 the average cost of a home was $190,000, and in 2018 the average price was $220,305. However, the typical…

Another Day Another Scam

Posted On: April 19, 2019

Being scammed in 2019 can happen very easily. In our tech-driven world, there are many avenues that scammers can use to take advantage of us. Using smartphones, computers, and other advanced tech, they will do whatever it takes to steal your hard earned money. This can happen in many different ways, including sending an email, calling or texting you, or (recently) creating a fake bank. At the beginning of the year, we wrote a blog called "Wire Fraud is on the Rise” and we’d like to remind you that we have partnered with Qualia, the real estate software that offers…

Millennial Homebuyers

Posted On: April 12, 2019

Millennials are going to be the target audience for home buying for quite some time, which could spark some bigger interests, but also bring in a broader variety of homes into view. In a survey done by Northshore Fireplace, "Almost half the millennials surveyed (45 percent) say they expect their first home to be their "dream home," according to a new survey of 2,000 millennials between the ages of 22 and 37." This can be seen as an unrealistic view. However, the generation is willing to relocate. From the survey, 65 percent of these millennials said they are willing to…

Capital Gains Tax on Real Estate

Posted On: April 5, 2019

Capital gains tax can happen when a homeowner buys their home for $100,000 and then, later on, sells their home for $500,000. Unfortunately, the seller may have to pay taxes on those profits in the form of capital gains tax. Now, with the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act changing some rules, now is a great time to go over capital gains and how they work. The first thing to mention would be the requirements to claim an exclusion of up to $500,000. The home your selling must be your primary residence, you must have owned the house for at…

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FHA or USDA? Which is For You?

When it comes to finding a loan, choosing between FHA or USDA can be a challenge. We can help explain the difference.

Equifax to Pay Up to $700 Million to Settle the Security Breach in 2017

One of the nation’s big three credit score agencies, Equifax, will be paying up to $700 million to settle the investigations of its 2017 (making this the largest settlement for a data breach) cybersecurity data breach that compromised the information of 150 million people.

Impacts of the Trump Administration on Real Estate

Home sales have seemed untouched (so far) by the mortgage deduction loss. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), found that in 2018, one out of every five taxpayers claimed deductions; however, this year, that number dropped to one in every ten. This number was also much lower for families who earn less than $100,000 a year.